


red eyes looking down from above

by dreamsoverdeath (dheiress)



Series: eyes [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Possessive Voldemort, Voldemort Raises Harry, Voldemort does not kill Harry, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-10 09:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12909519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dheiress/pseuds/dreamsoverdeath
Summary: The first time Harry met him, he was seven.(In a world where Lord Voldemort knew better than to kill the boy he marked as his equal, this happened.)





	1. happy birthday, harry

**Author's Note:**

> privately, I like calling this one "in which death eaters were more competent"

The first time Harry met _him_ , he was seven.

 

* * *

 

 

It had been July 31st and Harry remembered because it was his birthday.  Not that anything special happened during the day, though Mrs. Figg did give him a shiny apple that morning. _It_ happened after dinner, just before the Dursleys had gone to bed. Harry had already been locked inside his cupboard after washing the plates.

Inside his cupboard, he had managed to collect seven dead spiders, a half-empty matchbox and a stray piece of red yarn. The match sticks inside the match box were arranged to form a small box on his bed. That would be Harry’s cake. Three more matches were placed atop the cake to serve as his candles and the yarn was bundled at the top of the three matches because birthday candles need to be lit so they can be blown out. Harry imagined the spiders singing him a happy birthday. At the end of the song, he blew his candles out, the yarn string swirling up in the air before falling back down, and made a wish.

_I wish someone would take me away,_ he thought, staring at his matchstick cake. That was his wish every year at his birthday.

Then, the knocks came.

He heard Uncle Vernon grumbling past the stairs, followed by Aunt Petunia.

“Whosi’t?” snapped Uncle Vernon.

There was no answer but the knocking continued.

Harry sat up and peeked through the slits in his cupboard door. Aunt Petunia was in her curlers fluttering behind Uncle Vernon.

“Who is it?” she shrilled.

Still, no answer and no cease on the knocking.

“Bollocks!” Uncle Vernon cursed, though Harry also heard him unlocking the door.

“I swear if this is those motorboat sales people again, I would—”

But Uncle Vernon never finished saying what he would do if it were the motorboat sales people again, a familiar green light flashed through the gaps in Harry’s door and, for a moment, total silence reigned in the house.

Then, Aunt Petunia shrieked.

Not those shrieks she used when Aunt Marge’s dogs jumped on her or when Harry broke her favorite china dish, this was different. It was ear-splitting. Harry had to cover his ears. It was like someone scared her but at the same time made her sad.

 It was painful.

_Thud, thud, thud._ The unmistakable thumps of Dudley coming down the stairs.

“Mummy, what’s happen—?”

“No! Darling, no, don’t come down, up the stairs quickly—”

Again, another flash of green. Harry swore he had seen that light before.

(“No,” a woman shrieked. Red hair tumbled down and then, red eyes stared down.)

“NO!” he heard Dudley cry, “Mummy! Mummy!”

“There, there, little Potter, don’t cry. Big boys don’t cry.” A man said. His voice was calm but it only made Dudley cry harder.

Harry felt crying himself, he didn’t understand what was happening but it was scaring him.

“Rodolphus, you just killed his second mother, of course baby Potter would cry,” sang another voice, a woman’s. “But she’s not really your mother, is she, itsy bitty Potter? Your Mummy’s already dead, isn’t she? Uh-huh? So don’t cry.”

“You’re, you’re wr-wrong,” sobbed Dudley, Harry heard him directly above; he was standing on the middle of the stair flight. “She’s my mum, she’s my mum, my mu-mum, I’m not a Pott-potter! Harry is!”

Someone ran up the stairs, someone heavy but fast.

Dudley squealed.

A heavy thud.

Harry flinched. He felt cold; he couldn’t move his arms or his legs. He sat on his cot. Staring at the slits on his cupboard door.

“What did you do that for, Rabastan?” The man, the first voice, asked.

“There’s no scar. You heard him say it himself; this isn’t the boy.” A new voice, just above Harry, just where he last heard Dudley, replied.

The first man made an annoyed noise. “Well, search for the kid then! The brat must be hiding upstairs.”

The man on the stairs moved, his heavy footsteps going up the remaining flight.

Harry saw two shadows, both long and thin, pass his cupboard.

“Baby Potter,” the woman sang, “where are you?”

“Oh, he likes to play!” she giggled, “Would you like to play with Auntie Bella?”

“Bella,” the man chuckled, “You mad woman.”

Their voices faded out, Harry thought they must have moved towards the living room or the kitchens. Upstairs, he heard the doors banging open, rooms and cabinets alike.

_What’s Uncle Vernon doing,_ Harry thought frantically, w _hat’s Aunt Petunia doing?_ Why were they both being silent? Surely, they must not like this intrusion in their home, in their life; they hadn’t even started to forgive Harry for his.

He should have moved, should have shouted, should have done _something_ at the very least. But he couldn’t. Harry was very afraid. It was liked a very cold and heavy blanket was draped over him, stopping him from doing anything. For a long while, all he could hear was his heavy breaths which he tried to stifle with all his might.

And then:

“He’s not upstairs!” shouted the man on the stairs. His heavy footsteps ran down the stairs.

“Not in the living room, either.” The first man called back.

“No one in the filthy muggle kitchen or the yard.” The woman said, though this time she wasn’t singing, her voice was angry. It made Harry shiver.

“Then, where the bloody hell is he?” The man on the stairs asked.

Someone passed the cupboard, their shadow flitting through the slits. “Did you check for magical concealments,” the shadow, the first man, asked.

“Of course, I did.” The man on the stairs replied, voice offended.

“Not upstairs, not in the living room, not in the kitchen, no one left the house,” snarled the woman. Her shadow started to move across the door. “Where could—”

Only to stop.

Right.

In.

Front.

Of.

Harry’s.

Cupboard.

“Oh,” she said.

Harry stared at the slits of his cupboard door. The hairs on the back of his neck were rising.

The woman’s shadow was still.

“Where could itty baby Potter be,” she sang, moods changing as sudden as Dudley changed toys.

The shadow seen through the slits started to grow, started to cover all the gaps. Harry stared, could only stare at the inflating shadow, limbs numb, heart pounding wildly. He stared at the shadow until he realized it wasn’t just a shadow anymore.

Harry stared at the darkness and the darkness stared back with wild eyes.

“Why hello, baby Potter,” the darkness sang.

The coldness around Harry’s body shrunk and shrunk until it wrapped itself around his heart.

It _squeezed._

The cupboard door unlatched and swung itself open. By the pale hallway light, Harry saw the woman. A dark bundle of hair atop a waxy face and red lips curved in a wicked bone-white grin.

“Did they lock you up in there, love? Poor thing, look Rodolphus! Look at how scared he is!” laughed the woman.

She crouched down into the cupboard, her face crowding into his. He saw the stick in her hand, his eyes following its course as it brushed away his hair to reveal his forehead.

“There you are, little baby Potter.”

The stick itches against his skin and his scar started throbbing.

 “Were they starving you, darling?” she asked, her wild eyes smiling like crescent moons.

Harry said nothing in reply.

“Don’t worry! Auntie Bella punished those nasty muggles for you, so come on, come out, come away!”

She took one of his wrists, her grip colder and tighter than either his Aunt’s or Uncle’s had been, and pulled him away from his cot, out from his cupboard. “Come on, darling, someone’s been waiting to see you,” she said, still in that sing-song voice.

He tripped over Aunt Petunia, who was lying on the ground face down, not moving. Something about the sight made Harry whimper. The woman tugged on his wrist while one of the two men came up to his other side and placed his hand on Harry’s shoulder, heavy and grounding.

Uncle Vernon was slumped against the door, eyes wide open and still.

“My Aunt and Uncle—”

“Do not matter anymore,” the man with a hand on his shoulder said.

“We set you free, baby Potter, free!” the woman said, cackling while she stepped over Uncle Vernon as if he were a big pile of rubbish. They led him out of the Dursley’s house, the hand pulling on his wrist and the hand pushing on his shoulder.

Outside Number 4 Privet Drive, Harry noticed how no house has any light on, how quiet the whole place was.

He noticed the man standing on the lawn and his scar _hurt_.

“My Lord!” They called out.

“My Lord,” the woman repeated, kneeling down on the grass and hugging Harry tightly. “Here he is, My Lord.”

Her cheek pressed against his, her hair like dead spiders crawling over his skin.

“We found him locked up in their cupboard, starving and cold, the poor thing.” She said, kissing his cheek with a wet smack.

“You never do disappoint me, Bella,” the man on the lawn said, his voice a familiar memory.

(“Step aside, woman—”)

“Come to me, my child.”

Harry did not want to but the woman pushed him hard and then, suddenly, his legs moved on their own. Her cackles accompany Harry as he unwillingly walked towards this new man.

A step away from the man, his legs stopped and stuck together. Harry looked up at the man. The man had a stick too and, like the woman, he also used it to brush the fringes from his forehead.

“Harry Potter,” the man said, his ‘a’ long but his ‘t’s well tutted. His was a familiar face. Eyes red, nose proud and upturned, hair blending with the darkness of the night.

(“Avada—!”)

In the sky, above Harry, above even the man’s head, was glowing cloud shaped like a snake slipping out a man’s mouth.

_“My scar hurts,”_ Harry whispered.

The man smiled, a look on his face that Harry could not comprehend.

“ _Of course, I made it so, my little Horcrux.”_

 

* * *

 

 

This was how Harry met _him._

 

 


	2. what do you see in the mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There had always been something strange with the Riddle House.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'ed and unbritpicked, so I'll be very grateful if you can please point out any errors you see. My native tongue doesn't nitpick tenses as much as the English language does, I still have trouble with it even after all these years. :(
> 
> Happy reading!

 

There had always been something strange with the Riddle House.

The murder of the original owners, almost half a century ago, still disturbed the sleepy village of Little Hangleton. The subsequent release and continued residence of the believed murderer in there did not help settle any nervous chatter, of course. Nor did the fleeting ownership of the manor quiet any queer feelings about the place. The way it passed down from wary hands to another was very much like a curse, the villagers thought.

But recently, they noticed something more… peculiar, to say the least, about the Riddle House.

Some of the kids who liked to dare each other to enter the house swore that they heard a woman singing and laughing. When they peeked through the holes in the boarded windows, the kids saw nothing but the old, rotting insides of the house. As if this news weren’t ominous enough to the people of Little Hangleton, the night after the kids relayed their story, they all heard _the boy_.

“He was _crying_ ,” whispered one of the housewives living near the foot of the hill where the house stood, “Crying and hissing things all through the night. ’Don’t kill him!’ was all I understood from all I heard. He kept repeating it over and over.”

The locals in The Hanged Man who raptly listened to her story looked at each other and asked themselves—could it be the ghosts of the Riddles, finally haunting their house after all these years?

“But there had been no Riddle boy in that house except for their son which was grown up already when the murder happened,” reasoned the barkeep.

“How sure are ye?” asked one of the patrons.       

 “Well, there was no child’s body recovered, was there?” exclaimed the barkeep.

“Could have been hidden, kept under lock and key,” suggested another local.

“And why would they do that?” skeptically asked the barkeep.

“The Riddles had been prideful, hadn’t they? Their boy must have been shamefully disfigured, must have been a freak,” answered the first patron with increasing conviction. The barkeep scoffed at him but everyone else started talking over one another about why they think a boy would be kept hidden in the Riddle House.

While this was happening in their pub, some of the townsfolk, concerned by the talk of a boy’s cries, trudged up to the house in question. Upon the gates of the manor, a whisper—or was it a hiss— a _something_ made them stop and gaze at the abandoned building.

A faint green mist was surrounding the property, stinging their eyes and irritating their throats upon contact. They tried to endure this but something about the house’s derelict façade, the way it resembles a sick, dying man, struck terror deep in their bones. In face of this newly—and so suddenly— felt apprehension, they forgot what they were so concerned about, what was so important about going inside the Riddle House.

“Let’s go back,” murmured one of them after a long while of staring at the building.

“It must have been the wind,” said another, “just our imagination.”

The others nodded along and, as one, they all walked away, silently agreeing never to go back or even think of the strange Riddle House again.

Nobody saw the sprawling weeds, the tumbling flowers and the overgrown grass in the garden.

Nobody even realized that the one person who could have answered their questions about the Riddle House—their believed murderer of the Riddles, the seventy-year-old gardener Frank Bryce—has disappeared.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“ _*_ It’s that old recurring dream where you’re drowning _,_ ” she sang, “flailing your arms out, fearful and frantic.”

Harry almost called it tender, the way she carded her fingers through his hair, if not for the nails he felt scratching sharply against his scalp. Though his eyes were still aching from all the crying he’d done last night, the sting of her fingernails made them water again.

She must have seen his tears, for she petted his hair and pressed him against her chest. The tight embrace of the thick blanket she tucked him in and the small circle of her arms around him made breathing harder for Harry.

 “Don’t cry, don’t cry, those nasty, filthy muggles won’t hurt you again, baby Harry. You are special to our Lord, so you are special to Auntie Bella, alright? I won’t let any muggle or mudblood touch you again.”

Her scent was that of cloying flowers and, overwhelmed by it, Harry almost wished to be taken back to the hall where he saw—where he... _it_  happened.

“Why don’t you sleep?” cooed her.

“But it’s broad daylight,” protested Harry, though his words were muffled by the stiff fabric of her dress.

“Hush, listen to my lullaby and sleep, Harry,” said she sharply, mood as changing as the wind.

“And black waves are curling and pounding _,”_ Her arms tighten around him again as she sang, her voice sweet once more, next to his ears, “down onto your head somewhere in the Atlantic—”

A knock on the door interrupted and she snarled, “what?”

The door opened. It was the first man, the man Bella called Rodolphus. He didn’t step inside the room, lingering instead by the threshold.

“Bella,” said he, staring at the blanket cocooned Harry, “what are you doing?”

“Can’t you see? I’m singing him to sleep.”

“It’s time for breakfast,” answered the man, his voice flat. “Our Lord wants to see the boy.”

At the mention of ‘Our Lord’, she stood up immediately and began tugging Harry out of the constricting cocoon she placed him in.

“Well, why didn’t you say so,” she cried. To Harry, she urged, “Come, we mustn’t keep him waiting!”

Again, Harry found his wrist in her cold grip. She dragged him out of the room in a rush, Rodolphus following behind them more sedately. The thick draperies on every window were enough to plunge the house in night-like darkness. Only the dim flickers of the candles lining the walls were the source of light in the house, albeit poor sources they were. They hurried across hallways and down the stairs, Harry tripping on his bare feet every now and then.

Aunt Petunia would have approved of the lush, dustless carpet Harry was treading on, he thought.

They stopped in front of a large, heavy door.

“My Lord,” Rodolphus called and, without any answer from its other side, the door opened on its own.  The curtains were also closed, but a great number of lit candles floated high above the long dining table set in the middle of the room. Despite the ever flickering shadows on the wall, he could see the pretty silver and green design papering it. A feast like Harry had never seen before was atop the table.

The whole scene, bizarrely enough, reminded Harry of Christmases the Dursleys celebrated.

At the head of the table, was the man—

 

(—the man drew his stick across Harry’s arm and, in an instant, blood welled up in a straight line. Harry cried out, the sight of his blood in such quantity shocking him more than the pain the he soon felt from the wound.

The man ignored Harry’s cry, his red eyes tracing the path of the blood sliding down Harry’s arm. He swished the stick in his hand and a shallow dish appeared, catching the red droplets that fell from Harry’s fingertips.

“Don’t worry,” the man smiled, “I just need a—)

 

—a cup of tea in his hand.

“Ah, Harry,” the man said, “Come join Nagini and I.”

“Through the fathoms below you a shadow,” he heard Bella hum under her breath as from an unlit corner of the room, a darker shade moved towards them, “is gliding up towards you with singular purpose.”

“ _Is my little snakeling still crying?”_ came the hiss. Through the sputtering light, Harry managed to make out the long, winding body, the glistening scales and the large maw opened—

 

(—to eat the stiff body lying on the floor.

“ _Don’t kill him_!” screamed Harry. The old man didn’t do anything wrong, he just heard Harry’s cries and tried to help him. It was Harry’s fault; the man wouldn’t have died if not for him.

“ _But he’s already dead, silly snakeling,”_ hissed back the large snake, “ _and I’m hungry._ ”

She slithered towards the unmoving body, opened her mouth and—)

 

—in what Harry supposed to be a laugh.

“ _Nagini,_ ” he breathed as she twined her large body loosely around his.  Her forked tongue tasted the air near his nose and she hissed. The displaced air smelled coppery and what part of her he could brush against felt cold and slippery. Despite this—

 

(—or was it because of this?)

 

— Harry still found something comforting about the glide of her scales against his skin.

Like an embrace of a forgotten but once dear friend.         

He followed her as she led them toward the table, her bulk nudging him closer to the man. Behind them, footsteps strode away and a heavy door closed. Harry didn’t look back. The scent of food wafted towards him: syrupy pancakes, sausages, bacon, and rich chocolate. These were the Dursleys favorite breakfast meals, though they never cooked it all at once like this.

Harry’s stomach grumbled loudly.

“ _Come eat, Harry, though you must forgive our shut curtains,_ ” the man said, his calm voice soothing Harry immediately. “ _Unlike you, Nagini is still averse to sunlight_.”

“ _I’m not the only one who hates it,”_ she answered, nuzzling Harry’s cheek.

Nagini’s tail pointed at the seat at the man’s right, which Harry silently sat on, and then settled down around both their ankles in a satisfied curl.

The man leaned towards him, red eyes staring directly at Harry’s. Suddenly, Harry was reminded of the still forms of Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. The sound of Dudley’s squeal. The surprised gasp of the old man.

“Are you still upset about those muggles?” asked the man as he put down his tea.

He pronounced ‘muggles’ as if it were a dirty word.

“I don’t know,” Harry murmured slowly, looking away from the man, “what are muggles?”

“ _Vermin,”_ hissed the man with sudden venom, “ _They are those who cannot use magic. When faced with its might, they try to destroy it with their brute force. Just like what that vile family you lived with had done—”_

Here, his fingertips stroked Harry’s forehead, the contact bringing warmth to Harry’s skin. Almost to himself, the man continued, “s _uppressing your magical abilities with their hurtful words and willful ignorance.”_

The man scoffed, “ _As if they could ever hope to control something of mine with their filthy muggle ways.”_

“ _But,”_ Harry started hesitantly, “ _but I’m not—I’m not magical. I’m just—just Harry.”_

He leaned back and took another sip of his tea before addressing Harry again, “Tell me, just Harry, have you ever moved things without touching them?”

“I don’t know,” Harry replied quietly, “One time, I left an apple at the topmost shelf in my cupboard and then when I wake up it was beside me. I just thought I forgot moving it.”

“What about making animals do things you want them to?”

Harry shook his head, “But, I grew my hair overnight when Aunt Petunia shorn it and I shrunk one of my cousin’s old sweater when she forced it on me.”

The man nodded before his lips twisted upwards, “ _What about hurting people that hurt you?”_

Harry looked down at his toes, at the green scales of the snake tucked around their feet.

“ _No,”_ he started but a finger immediately curled below his chin, prompting him to look back up.

“ _Don’t lie to Lord Voldemort,”_ hissed the man. Harry felt a spike of fear (the stick cut through the air and a green light, almost soothing in its familiarity, emitted from its end and the old man fell, he fell and all Harry could do was scream and _scream_ ) and annoyance ( _how dare the boy lie to him, no one deceives Lord Voldemort_ ).

 _“Sometimes,”_ confessed Harry. Last month, Dudley and his gang chased him again in their school. He thought of jumping behind the large kitchen trash cans to hide but an angry voice in his head asked him why Harry should always be the one hurt. _You should hurt them back_ , said the voice and Harry agreed, _just this once, please._

As Dudley and his gang rounded up the corner, the small part of the kitchen roof directly above them—collapsed. Nobody got seriously injured, but everyone in Dudley’s gang sustained various cuts from the flying splinters. Harry was ecstatic when he learned Dudley himself got a very deep gash in his right hand from instinctively protecting his pigly face. Of course, that feeling only lasted a few days until Dudley realized the using his left hand would hurt Harry as much as using his right.

The roof’s collapse was written off as a horrible accident.

“ _See,”_ remarked the man, “ _you are magical as much as I am. You are above the rest, Harry. You are much more than all muggles collected together.”_

_“I…I am?”_

_“Yes. You are because I am.”_

His hand settled on Harry’s head and, in a way he once saw Uncle Vernon act on Dudley, stroked his hair. At once, a thought, brilliant and sensible and _hopeful_ , was aroused in Harry’s mind.

 _Mine,_ the man had said.

“Are you—are you my father?”

The hand stilled and the man stared at Harry for a long while.

“No,” replied the man thoughtfully. His fingers moved slowly again, carefully treading through Harry’s hair. Harry couldn’t help but lean into the touch. Nagini stirred at their feet, coiling tighter, bringing their feet in contact.

_“We are much closer than that, my little Horcrux.”_

Nagini twisted up around Harry’s leg before resting her shiny head on his knee. The man—Voldemort—

 

(—and wasn’t that weird? Calling the man Voldemort? It was like just a half-name, _a half-life._ A half of something. There was a riddle to this; he just needed to find the words of it—)

 

 _“— and Nagini and Harry Potter_ ,” he was saying as he rested his other hand on Nagini’s head _, “our bond is much stronger than that of flesh and blood.”_

As he said this, Harry saw it—like looking in a mirror, only there were three. There was the man and the snake looking at Harry, there was Harry himself and the man looking at each other, and then there was Harry again, this time looking up with the snake on his knees. 

At the edges of Harry’s consciousness, a question.

“ _What about—”_

 

(“Tom? Tom Riddle?”

A childhood friend he had forgotten.

A memory.)

 

“— _Tom Riddle?”_

The man’s hand twitched and Harry thought he saw red eyes widen.

_“How do you know that name?”_

“ _I know him,”_ hesitantly replied Harry, “ _Like I know you.”_

Voldemort— still it felt weird using that name, unused as he was to the strange letters; Tom Riddle, on the other hand, its letters felt as familiar as Harry Potter’s were to him—the man stayed silent, simply stroking Harry’s hair.

“ _Are you him?”_ blurted out Harry as the idea occurred to him, “ _Is Tom Riddle your real name?”_

The fingers in his hair tighten into a harsher (but more familiar) grip.

“ _My name matters not,”_ hissed the man. He leaned towards Harry, red eyes boring into his own. Harry could almost see his own reflection in those eyes. “ _Here is the only thing that matters—”_

 

(From somewhere else in the house, Harry heard Bella singing gleefully.

“Its black eyes find you almost at once,” she laughed-sang. “you can't hide, swim away or take air into your lungs to scream for help that won't come—”)

 

 _“—you are mine, Harry,”_ Tom Riddle whispered to Harry’s ear, breath fanning across his cheeks. It smelled ( _tasted_ ) like metal, like copper. Like the air around Nagini. Like—

 

(—Harry’s blood, trickling from his arm to his fingertips, down to the shallow white dish—)

 

_“We’ll do great things together, you and I.”_

 

* * *

 

  

Somewhere far away, a mark on the sky gleamed, striking anew fear and confusion deep in the bones of everyone who knew what it was.

The houses beneath it were all burned to the ground, everything turned to ashes.

No survivor accounted.

(“WHERE IS THE BOY WHO LIVED?” screamed the newspapers.)

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *In-verse I imagined this song as something Bella concocted as a lullaby for Harry. In our universe, however, this song is more commonly known as Black Eyes, by David Wirsig. Coincidentally (not), this song is also where the title of this fic was transmuted from. Go listen to the whole song, go on, I swear it won’t give you nightmares. You’ll just have…hmm, a bit of trouble sleeping—but meh, better than nightmares, right?
> 
> **and yep, Harry and Voldemort switch between parsel and common tongue during their conversations


End file.
